‘No. Honoria couldn’t have children. It was a great sadness to both of us.’
‘And how would you describe your marriage up to the time your wife got this terrible letter?’ Ballard was holding the letter out, at a distance, as though the paper itself might carry a fatal infection.
‘We were very happy.’
‘When she got the letter, how did she react to it?’
‘She was very brave, my Lord,’ Ricky told the judge. ‘She said it had obviously been written by some nutcase and that she intended to ignore it.’
‘She was extremely brave.’ The judge spoke the words with admiration as he wrote them down.
So Ricky Glossop told his story. And when I, the representative, so it appeared, of his wife’s murderer, rose to cross-examine, I felt a chill wind blowing through Number One Court.
‘Mr Glossop, you said your marriage to your wife Honoria was a happy one?’
‘As far as I was concerned it was very happy.’ Here he smiled at the jury and some of them nodded back approvingly.
‘Did you know that on the afternoon before she was murdered, your wife had consulted a solicitor, Mr Anthony Hawkin of Henshaw and Hawkin?’
‘I didn’t know that, no.’
‘Can you guess why?’
‘I’m afraid not. My wife had considerable financial interests under her father’s will. It might have been about that.’
‘You mean it might have been about the money?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that Anthony Hawkin is well known as an expert on divorce and family law?’
‘I didn’t know that either.’
‘And you didn’t know that your wife was considering proceedings for divorce?’
‘I certainly didn’t.’
I looked at the jury. They were now, I thought, at least interested. I remembered the frightened blonde girl I had seen outside the court and the hand he had put on her as he had tried to comfort her.
‘Was there any trouble between your wife and yourself because of her secretary, Sue Blackmore?’
‘So far as I know, none whatever.’
‘Mr Rumpole, I’m wondering, and I expect the jury may be wondering as well, what on earth these questions have to do with your client’s trial for murder.’
‘Then wonder on.’ I might have quoted Shakespeare to Graves: ‘Till truth makes all things plain.’ But I did not do that. I merely said, ‘I’m putting these questions to test the credibility of this witness, my Lord.’
‘And why, Mr Rumpole, are you attacking his credibility? Which part of this gentleman’s evidence are you disputing?’
‘If I may be allowed to cross-examine in the usual way, I hope it may become clear,’ I said, and then I’m afraid I also said, ‘even to your Lordship.’
At this, Gravestone gave me the look that meant ‘you just wait until we come to the summing up, and I’ll tell the jury what I think of your attack on this charming husband’, but for the moment he remained as silent as a block of ice, so I soldiered on.
‘Mr Glossop. Your wife’s secretary delivered this threatening letter to her.’
‘Yes. Honoria was working at home and Sue brought it over from her pigeonhole at the university.’
‘You’ve told us that she was very brave, of course. That she had said it was probably from some nutcase and that she intended to ignore it. But you insisted on taking the letter to the police.’
‘An extremely wise decision, if I may say so,’ Graves took it upon himself to note.
‘And I think you gave the story to the Press Association so that this death threat received wide publicity.’
‘I thought Honoria would be safer if it was all out in the open. People would be on their guard.’
‘Another wise decision, the members of the jury might think.’ Graves was making sure the jury thought it.
‘And when the letter was traced to my client, everyone knew that it was Hussein Khan who was the author of the letter?’
‘He was dismissed from the university, so I suppose a lot of people knew, yes.’
‘So if anything were to have happened to your wife after that, if she were to have been attacked or killed, Hussein Khan would have been the most likely suspect?’
‘I think that has been obvious throughout this trial.’ Graves couldn’t resist it.
‘My Lord, I’d really much rather get the answers to my questions from the witness than receive them from your Lordship.’ I went on quickly before the judge could get in his two pennies’ worth. ‘You took your wife to the university on that fatal night?’
‘I often did. If I was going somewhere and she had work to do in her office, I’d drop her off and then collect her later on my way home.’
‘But you didn’t just drop her off, did you? You went inside the building with her. You took her up to her office?’
‘Yes. We’d been talking about something in the car and we went on discussing it as I went up to her office with her.’
‘He escorted her, Mr Rumpole,’ the sepulchral voice boomed from the bench. ‘A very gentlemanly thing to do.’
‘Thank you, my Lord.’ Ricky’s smile was still full of charm. ‘And what were you discussing?’ I asked him. ‘Was it divorce?’
‘It certainly wasn’t divorce. I can’t remember what it was exactly.’
‘Then perhaps you can remember this. How long did you stay in the office with your wife?’
‘Perhaps five, maybe ten minutes. I can’t remember exactly.’
‘And when you left, was she still alive?’
There was a small silence.
The witness looked at me and seemed to catch his breath. Then he gave us the invariably charming smile.
‘Of course she was.’
‘You spoke to Mr Luttrell at the reception area on your way out?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘He says you asked him if Hussein Khan was in the building?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I suppose I’d heard from someone that he might have been there.’
‘And what did Mr Luttrell tell you?’
‘He said that Khan was in the building, yes.’
‘You knew that Hussein Khan’s presence in that building was a potential danger to your wife.’
‘I suppose I knew. Yes.’
‘I suppose you did. And yet you left and drove off in your car without warning her?’
There was a longer silence then and Ricky’s smile seemed to droop.
‘I didn’t go back to the office. No,’ was what the witness said.
‘Why not, Mr Glossop? Why not warn her? Why didn’t you see that Khan left before you went off?’
And then Ricky Glossop said something which changed the atmosphere in court in a moment, even silencing the judge.
‘I suppose I was in a hurry. I was on my way to a party.’
After a suitable pause I asked, ‘There was no lock on your wife’s office door, was there?’
‘There might have been. But she never locked it.’
‘So you left her unprotected, with the man who had threatened her life still in the building, because you were on your way to a party?’
The smile came again, but it had no effect now on the jury
‘I think I heard he was with the senior tutor in the library. I suppose I thought that was safe.’
‘Mr Glossop, were you not worried by the possibility that the senior tutor might leave first, leaving the man who threatened your wife still in the building with her?’
‘I suppose I didn’t think of that,’ was all he could say.
I let the answer sink in and then turned to more dangerous and uncharted territory.
‘I believe you’re interested in various country sports.’
‘That’s right, my Lord.’ The witness, seeming to feel the ground was now safer, smiled at the judge.
‘You used to go shooting, I believe.’
‘Well, I go shooting, Mr Rumpole.’ A ghastly twitch of the lips was, from the bench, Graves’ concession towards a smile. ‘And I hope you’re not accusing me of complicity in any sort of a crime?’